


Carnivore, digest me

by midnightflame



Series: Homecoming [10]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blood, Human Experimentation, M/M, Pain, Psychological Trauma, This is where it all goes wrong, Torment, Violence, arena fighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 15:37:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9391328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightflame/pseuds/midnightflame
Summary: A downfall has to begin somewhere. Here is where Shiro meets his.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So, here we get to see Shiro's side of things, and they don't go so well for him. But nothing ever seems to go well for Shiro when the Galra get their hands on him. Please take heed of any warnings above, though nothing is overly explicit here. And as before, I hope some things are now coming together as this series winds down, and that despite all the darkness involved in this one, you do enjoy!

The first time had been the easiest, starting more like an exhibition than anything truly death-dealing. It hadn’t been the sort of fight that kept the crowd on the edges of their seats, waiting for the first to fall, to see who would bleed too much and too fast, who would prove capable beyond all their dreams. They had called it a warm-up, a simple prelude meant to take just enough off the edge of an appetite.

It had been the sort of sating that only drove the crowd mad with hunger by the end. 

Shiro had ended that first tease of a fight quickly, dispatching efficiently the seven robotic guards that had been sent in to fight and leaving their dismembered figures crackling with electricity and dysfunction for all in the arena to see. There had been no spectacle, nor any pride. Shiro had simply walked back to the gate, his head held level, his shoulders set back, and his mind carefully closed off. 

When he had been sent out several hours after that initial show, it was to stand against a beast three times his size and the sword Sendak had promised lodged in its right shoulder. This time, when the creature fell, its breathing heavy and inconsistent, it was to the roar of the crowd, jarring against his ears. And when he stood before the gate once more, the eyes of those left inside the holding cell were imploring.

The second day proved no different. Another beast, large and fearsome, with all the trappings someone like Haggar could think of imbuing into it. It had taken Shiro almost twenty minutes to find the vital spot beneath its armored shell, tucked within its right axillary region and near impossible to hit without putting the better part of himself in danger. It had taken another twenty just to bring the beast down, and it had left him heaving and spent, with a laceration over his left shoulder and a void eating up his heart. 

It had been the cut sustained during that fight that had been the excuse to bring him to the Druids. And with his hands cuffed behind his back, his legs shackled, he had knelt while they cut away his shirt, as they examined his right arm, as they poked and prodded at his opened flesh. Shiro had felt the blood run hot down his back as they looked over the wound and could only grit his teeth when they set suture to skin without any anesthetic. 

An experiment in pain. 

And when his vision had blurred, his mouth run dry, he could only watch as they tugged his arms forward sharply and strapped them down over one of the examination tables, lowered just for him. As the tourniquet went tight around his bicep and the vein bulged along the inside of his elbow, he had half a thought to fight. But the struggle only ground his knees harder into the floor, and as the needle slid in with neat precision and its too-bright contents fed into his bloodstream with the relinquishing _snap_ of the tourniquet falling from his arm, Shiro could only swallow down the shards of fear renewed. 

_Here you are again_.

Within seconds, his mind had gone static, a black and white mess of sound scrambling his thoughts until everything went blissfully dark with silence. 

He found himself in the arena’s holding cell when he awoke next, alone with only the murmurings of the crowd washing over him in quiet waves. His clothes had been changed, and there was a bottle of water along with a package of food, which he devoured despite himself. A pinpoint bruise sat in the crook of his left elbow, a mark that Shiro rubbed at restlessly until the gate of his cell opened and the cries of the crowd surged, a heart-quickening roar. 

The third creature was no less imposing than the second had been, though what it lacked in armor it made up for in speed and precision. A veritable hellcat of a being and it left its fair share of bruises and cuts across Shiro’s body before he finally took it down with a solid thrust of his right arm square into its chest. The creature had shuddered with the hit, its breath foul and hot as it snarled in venomous fury. It’s dying mark burned against Shiro’s ribs. 

He saw the Druids again after this. Shackled as before, but this time he was thrown over the examination table and strapped down, full body stripped. It only made his ribs ache all the louder. And when he began to talk, questions coming hard and fast off his tongue, they stood in silence, watching him. It set a panic loose within his head, and as he forced his words to slow, they began to move around the table, circling then enclosing. A palm set against his bruised ribs, mimicking the claw mark raked across skin, another over his thigh, and the pain sparked searing, burning the words on his tongue until all he could do was scream.

As the world lost its blinding edge, Shiro could just make out another syringe, a familiar tightness closing in around his arm, and the easy press of a needle into his vein. 

Everything else remained forgotten. 

By the time he is sent out for the fourth fight, there is an inconsistent buzzing in the back of his head, fracturing his thoughts and splicing them together in nonsense. It’s a headache that refuses to abate, made all the worse by the lights of the arena. He lifts a hand to the back of his skull, hoping the press of his palm might still the sounds interfering with his mind. Across the arena floor, the other gate lifts to the sudden quiet of the crowd, and out comes the greatest challenge Shiro knows he will have to face. 

He turns to look around him, and spotting Sendak sitting just above his own holding cell, Shiro aims the point of his sword at him, his lips pulling into a tight bloodless line. Sendak simply smiles and nods his head towards Shiro’s next opponent, small and trembling, with fear scrawled across his face and a sword far too big for him in his hands. Shiro doesn’t know from which planet the boy had been pilfered from, but there is nothing of battle-ready or wanting in the life that stands before him. 

Just the terror of being thrown into the arena with the likes of him. 

Shiro shakes his head and drops his sword with outward disgust. His opponent falls to his knees, bowing low before him. In the silence of the crowd, sobs echo across the arena. With a kick of Sendak’s head, one of the guards shoots, leaving a smoking black mark just centimeters from the boy’s head. A second one lands just beside his outstretched hands, sending the boy curling in on himself. Before the third can hit, Shiro is running, and the crowd is roaring once more. 

He grabs the boy by his collar and makes for one of the arena’s imposing white columns, where he presses the boy up against its side, shadow-draped and well out of view from the majority of the crowd. His skin is a pale blue, his eyes wide and green and brimming with fear. He couldn’t be any more than what a ten-year-old would be as a human. Shiro pushes against him, his hands wrapped carefully around both wrists, holding the boy up.

“I need you to listen to me and be as brave as you possibly can,” Shiro murmurs, his voice shaking. “I am going to hurt you, but. . .I want you to live. . .”

He doesn’t wait for a reply, only releases one hand from the boy’s wrists, curling it into a fist. He makes sure the hit is clean and breath-depriving, and as the boy’s head slumps forward with a soft but terrible cry, Shiro takes his body and sends it sliding out from around the pillar, in plain view of the crowd. He steps out seconds later, his gaze closed off, his chest heaving, and without a word, he walks back to his gate. 

As soon as he’s let back into the holding cell, his world goes black. 

“You were supposed to kill him.”

“I don’t kill kids,” Shiro mutters. He feels like he’s talking to himself, but through his hazy vision he can make out the sweep of a druid’s cloak. “Or anyone you tell me to for that matter.”

Pain is hammering at the back of his skull, sending electric bursts of light behind his eyes. He breathes out slowly, and as his heartbeat starts to regulate its rhythm once more, he can tell there’s something wet over his lips. As he looks down, Shiro can just make out the slow progression of blood dripping from him. 

“Let Haggar know that Zarkon has given his approval.”

“Sendak. . .”

A figure comes striding over, perfectly soundless Shiro idly notes, and stands just before him. It takes him a minute to gather himself before he can lift his head and stare at the man he wants to blame for everything so wrong in his life. Even as Shiro knows that’s not the case and there is someone far, far worse just waiting. 

A faint smirk takes the corner of Shiro’s mouth. He exhales slowly, and with the effort, more of the world around him filters into view. He’s back in what he’s come to call the laboratory. The medical table, familiar and cold, sits off in its usual place. Before him, there’s a panel with screens flashing Galran script. 

Shiro sits as far back on his heels as the two soldiers flanking him will allow. 

Sendak is smiling down at him, amused. “I almost forgot, Shiro. Consider this a little consolation prize for your act in the arena today.”

“What are you - ?”

But Shiro doesn’t finish his question. There is only horror, dawning terrible and heart-rending, as he watches the screen just behind Sendak flicker, morphing into something more than Druid witchcraft. A flash of red and white dashes across one of the hallways of the ship, dark hair plastered against the back of his neck.

Shiro turns his gaze back to Sendak, widened eyes narrowing, sharp and quick, with outrage. 

“Don’t you dare touch him!” he snarls, lunging against the hands wrapped tight around his shoulders. Again and again, he struggles forward, driven by panic and a fear he never thought he would have to face. 

And just as he breaks the hold over his right arm, Sendak is standing there, still smiling.

“I promise you I won't be.”

Pain screams from the back of his head once more, riotous and deafening. The world burns bright as a dying star, and then, there is nothing. 

Absolutely nothing.


End file.
